


Their Own Little Girls Keep Them Dreaming

by starsandgraces



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-13
Updated: 2011-05-13
Packaged: 2017-10-19 08:56:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsandgraces/pseuds/starsandgraces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gaila's life doesn't stop after she has a baby; it just changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Their Own Little Girls Keep Them Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [where_no_woman](http://where-no-woman.livejournal.com/)'s Mother's Day fest, for the prompt: _Gaila loves her daughter, Kirk's daughter, because she didn't get to keep him but this piece of him will always be hers_ , which I strayed from slightly. Title taken from 'Mother's Ruin' by Kirsty MacColl. Thanks to [mrasaki](http://mrasaki.livejournal.com/) for alpha-reading to calm my shattered nerves.

Gaila was pregnant once before, a long time ago. She's not too surprised when it happens again; two months trapped on a planet is more than enough time for her body to overcome the only contraceptive hypo that works for her hybrid physiology. Doctor McCoy remarked on it once, that she's the only hybrid he knows who manages to be hyper-fertile instead of sterile. He sounded cross when he said it, but Gaila could see the smile in his eyes.

She likes Leonard. It's almost a pity that she wasn't trapped with _him_. If she had been, maybe it'd be his baby in her belly now. She'd like a baby with smiling hazel eyes.

But it's not as if she minds that it was Jim. He's one of Gaila's closest, dearest friends, which is why—when they both thought it was hopeless and they weren't going to survive—they spent their last few nights on Staas V together. His contraceptive must have run out as well, because Gaila knows he's always careful. Jim confessed to her once that he never wanted to leave a child without a father the way he'd been left without one. Gaila had a father (who wasn't her biological father) and she thinks she understands.

And so, as soon as she decides she wants to keep this pregnancy, Gaila knows she has to tell Jim.

She finds him in the mess, picking at a tray of food. He's thin, still, from their experience on their last mission. Not as thin as either of them were just before they were rescued, but still not back to normal yet. Gaila considers leaving without saying anything until Jim looks up, catches her eye and smiles broadly, if a little tiredly.

"Do you have time to talk?" she asks, sitting down next to him.

Jim pushes the tray away. "What's up?"

"I'm pregnant," Gaila says. It wasn't what she intended to open with.

"Staas V?" Jim asks, catching on immediately. He reaches out for her hands. "It's mine?"

"You're the father. The baby is his or her own person," she says sharply, but she lets Jim hold her hands.

"It's a limitation of Standard and you know it. I can't believe..." He trails off, looking at her still-flat stomach.

"We're going to need you," Gaila tells him, lying slightly. She wants him to do this with her more than anything, but she doesn't need him. Someone once told her that men need to be needed, and while Gaila doesn't know if it's entirely true, those five words make Jim squeeze her hands and his smile—though still tired—widens further.

"Whatever you need," he promises, "anything."

Jim keeps his word, though most of what she needs is his support. Gaila insists on working right up until the point where it's uncomfortable to move through the smaller Jefferies tubes, while Commander Scott worries about her and the baby. Jim stands up for her and tells Scotty that she can work as long as she wants. She does notice that she's being assigned to less dangerous areas, but she's willing to put up with that.

In the end, she works right up until the day she goes into labour.

***

Their daughter is born with pale green skin, pale reddish-blonde hair and pale blue eyes. _Too pale_ , Gaila thinks at first; thinks, _She's ill_ , and mourns her before anything even happens. The Orion trade for a shorter pregnancy is a higher infant mortality rate. She remembers the compound where she was born and lived for the first six years of her life. The babies there were cared for, but never truly loved and _never_ named before their first birthday.

Gaila loves her daughter from the moment she lays eyes on her. For all the Orion traditions she's never been able to forget in her years living among humans, she can't adhere to that one. When she's three days old, Gaila names the baby Devna. It's an old, old Orion name, one that Gaila knows belonged to many aunts and cousins she'll never see again. When she decides on it, she knows it's the best choice she could have made.

"You two should move into my quarters for a while," Jim says, cradling Devna against his chest. She's fast asleep, with the fingers of one hand curled in Jim's off-duty shirt. The sight makes Gaila want to cry for reasons she doesn't fully understand.

"We can't do that; you need your sleep," she protests. "You're the captain."

"But you're going to need help," he says. "I promised I'd help."

"Nurse Chapel offered to help. I don't have a roommate so she's going to move into my quarters. But if we need anything else, _anything_ at all, we'll come to you," Gaila says. He looks a little disappointed, so she adds, "And Devna can come and stay with you when she's a little bit older."

It only takes one sleepover before Jim seems to realise exactly what a big favour Gaila did him. Devna is a restless, colicky baby for her first few months and two sleepless nights in a row are enough to convince him that he can provide them with more help by giving Gaila a break when she really needs one.

Much to Gaila's relief, at around the same time as Devna's colic settles down, her skin begins to take on a healthier shade and her eyes change until they're closer to the colour of Jim's eyes than Gaila's own. Her hair darkens a little as well, more towards Gaila's red than Jim's blond. Gaila sees them both in her.

Jim starts dating other people when Devna is twenty-two weeks and three days old. Even though they're not together in that way—and haven't been since long before they conceived Devna—Gaila can't help but feel a pang.

She talks to Christine about it. Christine has become one of Gaila's closest friends and confidantes since she got pregnant, and closer yet since they began rooming together. It's easy to confess that she's finding it difficult.

"Of course you are," Christine says, stroking the curve of Gaila's hip. "You had a baby together five months ago. Your hormones are still raging and in any case, you're friends with him. You two have always been close. If you didn't have a problem with this you'd be a Vulcan."

"Actually, I think Spock's jealous as well," Gaila replies, smiling sweetly.

Christine laughs and buries her face in the crook of Gaila's neck.

"But it's hard," Gaila murmurs into her hair.

Devna grows up fast. It isn't just her Orion side, though that surely accounts for some of it. She crawls through Jefferies tubes before she can walk and teethes on the handles of tools from Gaila's belt. Her first word, much to her father's dismay, is something very like "Scotty". Commander Scott is thrilled and takes half an hour out so he can teach Devna how to handle a hyperspanner.

"That is _horrifying_ ," Jim says the first time he sees Devna gumming a sonic driver. But when he tries to take it away, she screams so loudly that five engineers come running to find out what's happened.

Knowing that his daughter has more watchful eyes and ears looking out for her in Engineering than anywhere else on the ship seems to reassure Jim, which relieves Gaila. He could order them to keep Devna away from Engineering and make Gaila leave her in the ship's daycare, but he doesn't. Thanks to that, Devna speaks engineering as her first language and Standard as her second.

Gaila makes sure she has friends of her own age as well, so she doesn't grow up without any social skills. Spock and Uhura's son, Sorak, is six months older than Devna. He's a quiet and reserved child, and when Devna is two she announces they're going to get married some day.

"Have you talked about this with Sorak?" Gaila asks, pausing in her readjustment of a conduit.

Devna shakes her head firmly. "We're gonna."

"Okay, leafling. Make sure you invite me to the wedding."

"No!"

"No?" Gaila laughs and kneels down to hug her daughter. "Why not?"

"Wait, yes," she says, and hugs Gaila back tightly.

***

Gaila is offered a transfer away from the _Enterprise_ when Devna is three and a half, to go back to Earth and teach Advanced Engineering at Starfleet Academy with Winona Kirk; a dream opportunity. But it's a difficult choice. She grew up in a slave compound on Orion and a Federation space station. Gaila wants her daughter to grow up with the freedom to choose between grass beneath her feet and blue sky over her head, and the bowels of an engine on every side. She wants Devna to experience everything. She'll also get to meet her grandmother, whom Gaila has only met in person once herself.

But she doesn't want to make Devna leave her father. For nearly a week she thinks about taking the job on Earth and leaving her daughter on the _Enterprise_ with Jim. Gaila knows she'll be fine.

In the end, it's Jim who unwittingly helps her to decide.

"I always wanted to go into space with my mom," he says. "Or... anywhere, really, so long as I was with her. But space seemed like an adventure. It was somewhere different to Riverside, you know?"

 _So long as I was with her_ , Gaila thinks, and she knows what she has to do.

The USS _Yorktown_ passes near enough to the _Enterprise_ on its way back to Earth that Gaila and Devna can get a ride from them. Gaila doesn't want a big farewell party, because she doesn't think Devna will understand what's happening. As bright as she is, she's only three and Gaila is worried she'll be upset by it, so a small party sees them off from the shuttlebay. Gaila kisses Uhura and Christine and Jim goodbye, and Devna gives Sorak a peck on the cheek before hugging her father so tightly he winces.

Jim stops them just before they leave. "You can always come back, you know," he says quietly. "There's always a place for you on board any ship I command."

"I know," Gaila says, and kisses him again, lingering for a moment. "We'll see you in a year. And we'll send vids."

"Bye, Daddy!" Devna says.

No one comments on the look on Jim's face.

When they arrive, some weeks later, Winona meets them off the shuttle. Devna takes an immediate liking to her grandmother and insists on being carried by her. It's been a long trip back to Earth in more than just time and she falls asleep against Winona's shoulder very quickly as they walk from the shuttleport at the academy back to Winona's house in San Francisco.

"I can take her if you want," Gaila says. "She's heavy."

"Not as heavy as half the things I lift every day in an engine." She smiles. "She's even more beautiful than I expected. She likes engineering?"

"More than anything else. Apart from dinosaurs, maybe. She kept asking if there would be any here waiting for her."

They both laugh, and Devna stirs but doesn't wake. The two women lapse into silence.

"You're very brave," Winona says eventually, shifting Devna's weight in her arms.

Gaila looks at her in surprise. "I'm not brave. What you did was brave."

"No," she says, shaking her head. "I didn't have any choice in the matter. You chose what was right for you and Devna, even though it was difficult for you—and Jim."

"I sometimes wonder if I did, or if I was just selfish."

"We make the best choices we can for our children until they can make their own," Winona says softly. Then she smiles brightly at Gaila. "Come on. We're nearly home."


End file.
